Parasa's Virus
by halyathedragon
Summary: In yet another reality Dib has been forced to endure, Parasa ends up with a bit of difficulties thanks to her virus. Zim is still broken but he might be repaired when Parasa's multiple personalities aren't causing havoc. Crummy summery, I know. This story is a follow up to my previous stories. Still thinking of a better title...


Dappled sunlight filtered in from above, the air warm and comforting. Dib rested against a tree, drifting in and out of sleep, not caring about where he was. He didn't know when he had gone outside to sit under a tree but it was quite nice out, a complete contrast to what his day was usually like. But, as always, it didn't last too long.

Dib was jolted into sudden awareness when something stirred in the leaves above and next to him. He cracked open his eyes and stared up into the vegetation overhead. He frowned at what he saw, half confused and half annoyed.

"Hello child," she said in her irritating voice. Parasa was hanging upside-down with her legs hooked onto a branch.

Dib grunted in response, rolling over on his side to ignore her.

"You're early, I only just finished. Also, how do you feel about this tree? Is it like the real thing or do I need improvement? This virus has set me behind a lot so we need to get going now."

"Uh-huh." Dib mumbled, hoping he would be left alone to sleep some more.

He heard the sound of splintering wood and a small squeak. Parasa came crashing down out of the tree, falling in between Dib and the other figure, which still hadn't woken up.

"Trees are unreliable." The strange human muttered, standing up to brush the dirt off her jeans and white T-shirt with the 101 on the front, the ones looking more like L's. "Get up," she growled, poking Dib in the stomach with her foot repeatedly.

"Naa…" Dib growled, rolling his back to Parasa's intruding foot.

"We're gonna be late, it's almost here." She whined, grabbing the other humans arm and pulling at it with all her might, which was only enough to lift Dib off the ground for about a second.

"No… wait, what's almost here?" Dib asked, raising his eyebrow and propping himself up with his elbow.

"Look over there," She pointed to Dibs right.

In the direction she was pointing was a huge lake. It stretched from horizon to horizon, its tiny waves lapped at the banks. The lake narrowed the farther out it went; a pair of small grassy mountain ranges flanked it on each side. A straight was carved between the mountains where the river that fed the lake had snaked its way in the middle. The landscape would have been very serene, had it not had the large chunk of blue and green, gelatin-like substance crawling across the surface of the water from the straight to about the middle of the lake, and it was slowly expanding its territory. Its surface rippled in the wind and dark figures moved about in the substance.

"What is that?" Dib asked with his voice lowered and tense.

"I don't know, can't remember what it was. Though my guess is that it isn't pleasant."

The raven-haired boy stood up, new energy filling him now that he had a motive. He stretched and yawned, not too worried about the thing in the water. It seemed too big and slow to be a threat.

The body that was silent stirred and groaned. The alien sat up and looked at Parasa, then Dib and then back to Parasa. His crimson eyes glared at the female, knowing exactly what was going on. Or so he thought.

"Did you fix him yet?" Dib leaned over and whispered in Parasas ear.

"Not yet, I'll do it when we have more time. But right now we have to go." She glanced at her white watch that had appeared bound around her wrist before she turned her back to the lake and strolled through the knee-high grass.

Dib followed close after her, wondering if Zim was following behind, not that he cared.

Parasa glanced behind, clicked her tongue and increased her pace to just slower than a jog.

The boy opened his mouth to ask why Parasa suddenly changed her speed but she got to it first.

"It's already at the shore. Like I said, we're going to be late."

They hurried across the field of untrimmed grass. In the distance, one could just make out the tops of buildings. It was a small modern town. The town was still quite a distance away and the only sound to be heard was the sighs of the wind and their heavy breathing.

"Why couldn't Spode have made humans fast?" Parasa growled to herself.

Dib remembered she said 'Spode' once before. "What's 'Spode'?" Dib asked, hoping she would answer straightforwardly.

"You should know what 'Spode' is, stupid human." Zim snapped, nearly scaring Dib out of his skin. Dib absolutely hated when people do that. When you having a conversation with someone then some random person you weren't expecting butts into your conversation and scares the shit out of that one person who didn't see it coming.

"It's basically a species of god or a type of religion if you want to look at it that way." Parasa explained in a tone that told Dib his question was kind of a stupid one.

"How can there be species of god?" Dib replied to the answer.

"Your questions, they make no sense. Of course there can be species of god depending on your religion and beliefs. Though I wouldn't consider 'Spode' a religion because it is a physical species but many beings all over the cosmos are followers of Spode's word. I for one couldn't care less about religion but I don't know enough about it to have my opinion mean as much as a well-educated creature, especially one who is of _thugine_ blood. Their schools are some of the best in the universe as we know it."

Dib thought about the response though it only led to more confusion. As it was more often than not, the answer he got made him more puzzled than he was before.

"Could you clarify?" Dib pleaded.

"No, I think not." Parasa replied simply.

"Then what's a _thugnine_?"

"It's pronounced _thugine_, and it is a race of bat-like bipeds. Their native language is _dharen, _though I have no clue how to speak it. They have a library that has at least one book of every language of creature that has every met a space-faring species. They have one of the largest collections of books in human languages. It's third to that of the _drakens_, which is second only to that of the Counsel of Spode."

"What's a _draken_?"

Parasa sighed and didn't say anything for some time. "Memories mostly, good and bad though it's mostly bad. They're very different compared to every other intelligent species, the biggest difference being that they aren't two-legged. Drakensare what humans would call… dragons? I think that's the word. They don't actually breathe fire if that's what you're thinking. But they do fly. Why humans know ofdrakens I don't have a clue. If humans ever met drakens, you wouldn't be here right now. Drakens were very violent in their past, war-mongers they were. They gave up that past quite recently, when I was just working as a small communicator in one of their rouge ships since all drakens who sought death and destruction were banned and became pirates."

Parasa stopped to draw in a breath from her hurried chattering.

"Whew… tired, all this remembering stuff is exhausting. You know, all this mess happened 752 Earth-years ago."

"You're old." Dib stated, but it was almost a question.

"I ain't old, I tell ya!" The apparently old lady snapped.

They were nearing the town and the gelatin was approaching.

"As I was saying, these rouge drakens one day caught up with this irken ship. One those little ships that transport goods between other civilizations. They took prisoners which is rare for drakens to do. That's when I met my first friend, Mittens…"

"Do I hear someone telling old tales?" The voice resonated from the distance. It was masculine, familiar to Dib, and had a hint of a British accent in it.

"Oh no," Parasa moaned, "Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Because, I'm bored and so is Syria."

Now Dib remembered who he was, sort of.

"I don't care. I come here to get away from you and your annoyingness."

"You call me annoying? But you would rather hang out with an irken and a human than me or Syria or _Terix_ even? You could at least invite us to tag along."

"Ok fine, come on in." Parasa said angrily.

"Hmm, can I bring Syria?"

"Yes, fine, I don't care. I suggest you and your other materialize in the first of the second group of squares with the blue and white sign that says '_Walblues_'."

The voice didn't return.

"Ok then, I guess we get to meet Orin and Syria. Sometimes I hate having multiple personalities."

"So… I presume that Orin, Syria and Terix are your personalities, right?"

"Close but no cigar. Love that saying… No, they aren't my personalities. We are all parts of a whole structure that work together, not really. We are part of the same system but we each have our individuality." Parasa explained, careful to pick the most uncomplicated explanation for she fear evoking any more questions from Dib.

The human stayed quiet, he could hear in Parasa's voice that she was probably going to punch out his teeth if he asked any more questions.

The strange trio walked silently the rest of the way to the town. The roads were worn down to a faded gray but it was clear of major cracks. The road curved around to a stop light that blink from green to yellow to red though there was no traffic to be seen. Various buildings set in grid-like arrangements were all painted a faint beige color and no more than two stories tall.

They followed the curved road to the light. Parasa stopped and checked around, trying to remember which building was the right one. She spotted the structure; it was one road down and sat in the corner of the two streets with enough space in-between to house a small parking lot that was barren of cars. The parking lot was bordered by single rows of grass and bushes cut to be even and rectangular. The store had fancy blue and white lettering that spelled out 'Walblues' and had a symbol beside it that looked like a cup pouring out triangles into nothing.

Parasa slipped through a gap in the bushes and meandered across the black-faced lot. Zim and Dib followed behind her. The girl approached the glass and metal framed door and reached into her pocket to drag out a mess load of keys that were all linked to one circle. She plucked the first key apart from the rest and tried the keyhole but it wasn't the right one so she flipped it to the end and tried the next key, so on and so forth.

Dib casually glanced back to the stop light. It was gone and had been replaced with a wall of blue-green goo that piled in globs on the ground and used those artificial feet to drag itself forward at a rather disturbing pace for it size. It had swallowed up everything that was half a street away. It towered high in the air, at least five stories of gelatinous substance that swayed delicately in the wind and was threatening to topple over.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up in fear. Dib grabbed Parasa's arm and tried to get her to look at it.

"I know, I know! We're late so now it's really close to our refuge." She tried another key, jamming it into the lock but not having any luck with opening the door.

Dib stood over the other human and pressured her to go faster though she insisted that she was trying the keys as fast as she could. The wall was approaching; it had already blocked out the direct light though rays still barely seeped in through the thick that casted blue-green rippling shadows around the ground and the front of the building.

The goo was feeling the bushes and taking in the plants will little hesitation. Its feet stretched forward and inched its way over the tar while Parasa continued to fumble with the keys of all sizes, colors and shapes.

The giant slab of gelatin was feeling its way on the last bit of parking spots that lined up parallel to the front of the store. The substance absorbed the warmth from the air, leaving it a dry cold that pricked Dib's throat whenever he took in a breath.

Zim, who had been silent almost the entire time, was staring at the keys in Parasa's hand and contemplating something in his alien mind. Finally he grabbed the ring of keys from her hand and flipped to one square sliver key. He handed it back to her and watched Parasa intently.

The girl gazed a Zim with some kind of interest before slipping the key into the door. It unlocked.

The blob was reaching up to grasp at the air a few inches away from the group. Parasa pushed the door open with Dibs help and they all rushed inside just as the goo was sliding in to take the place they had just been. The two humans slammed the doors together, catching a piece of the gelatin in the process. The glob that was sliced off squirmed and writhed on the ground before settling down and turning into a liquidly puddle on the ground.

The wall of blue and green smeared on the glass windows of the front of the store, causing the building to creak and groan in protest of the added weight. The windows were bent inwards and threatened to fracture into the spider web pattern.

"We're safe," Parasa sighed, "At least, for now."

* * *

**Finally started this, my third story!**

**This follows up from my other stories.**

**Please Review!**


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